


Slave no more

by transformersgirl



Category: Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 15:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11164785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transformersgirl/pseuds/transformersgirl
Summary: If you ask Nera what she remembers from her life cycle, she would tell you it would be pain. Then she'd smile, and she would tell you that her life changed thanks to one yellow minibot.





	Slave no more

In an abandoned, powerless and broken down youth sector building three seekers and a communications officer were walking through, looking for survivors as they were told. If there were any they were to terminate them on the spot. The communications officer, blue and white with a red visor and a facemask, split from the other three and went to a more intact part of the building where all the consoles where and pressed a button near his right shoulder and spoke in a crisp monotone voice, "Ravage: eject. Operation: seek out survivors."  
Out transformed a black robotic panther who ran off further into the building, between the two groups.

Near by Ravage could hear crying and clicking and went to investigate, just like Soundwave told her to. Ravage went over to a broken down console and was slowly getting closer to the sound. Ravage smelled around the ground for a different scent and finally confirmed it came from inside a console. She pawed and clawed and yanked until the panel underneath came off and peeked in to see a mostly black and yellow sparkling. Ravaged stared at the 'survivor'. A sparkling, still alive, was crying her optics out. Ravage looked around and crawled inside and sniffed the yellow crying sparkling causing it to stop crying and upon seeing a 'kitty', she started to giggle. Ravage looked at it with soft optics and grabbed her by the scruffbar gently, the yellow sparking curled into a ball instinctively and carried her to a pair of seekers, one blue and black and the other purple and black. Skywarp turned as Ravage got close and saw the sparkling clicking conversationally at Ravage. He took said sparkling from Ravage and she quieted down. Skywarp twitched his wings, she twitched her wings, he tilted his head, she tilted her head, grinned then laughed. Skywarp smiled, " TC! Tc, look isn't she cute?"

"Yes but shes supposed to be dead, I'm amazed."

"Can we keep her? Maybe if we three took care of her Megatron will let us keep her."

"But shes so small, he won't want her, she won't be big enough to fight."

"What? But shes just a sparkling, besides Rumble and Frenzy fight."

"But Soundwave had those before the war started, it doesn't count."

Skywarp pouted as he cuddled her close to his chest. Another jet came down, a trio color of red blue and white, and transformed next to them "what are you two doing now?" he asked irritably.

He had a sparkling shoved in his faceplates for an answer "click?" it asked tilting her head and fluttering her wings, Starscream was hesitant but fluttered his wings back causing her to giggle. He softened at the sight, "Where did you find her?"

"Ravage found her."

"Can't we keep her, Star?" Skywarp clasped his servos together in a pleading motion.

Starscream looked wearily between the two "Skywarp, you know Megatron's feelings on sparklings."

"Oh please! It's not like she would grow up to want to rule the Decepticons!"

From behind Thundercracker mumbled "If around Starscream she will." he took a step forward, "why don't we just tell him that we are teaching her how to be obedient." he ended with a shrug.

The three of them looked between each other, then Stacrscream put her into his cockpit and they transformed and flew back to the base. It took a lot of pleading and convincing , and some persuasion on Sounwave's part, once he learned of the sparkling from Ravage, but she was kept and raised to listen and obey. The years went by and the more she grew up the more they started to get more abusive after finding out that she was a minibot seeker and soon the little care they gave her vanished. They crash landed on a planet she learned was called Earth and after a few years there they started taking in humans as test subjects for Megatrons interest, some times for Shockwave's sick pleasure when he followed them down. She would have nightmares about their screaming and pleading. She had to go in and burn the dead human bodies and if the experiment failed then she had to clean up the lifeless frames. She was sent in when one was still alive. She stopped in her tracks to see their flicking optics and static filled voice "P-please, help me. It h-hurts. Make it s-stop."

She looked down both hallways and once it was clear she hurried over and in a quiet voice said "I will try to get you out. Once I can get you out you'll need to get to the Autobots, I hear they will help you, or at least try."

She went to the controls and hit the release buttons and helped the mecha to his feet as they slowly made there way to the door. Only for it to open and then standing face to face with Megatron's glare, a loud shot and energon splattered all over her frame shocked her frozen in place. As the frame fell off her frozen frame Megatron spoke in a deadly tone, "You were trying to help that thing escape weren't you?"

"No! No I thought that if we could still save him he would be thankful and help our side."

He sneered and raised a hand, "You know nothing besides being stupid, you hang around Starscream too much." and down came his hand with full force, knocking her to the round and denting her faceplates. She stayed on the floor hoping he would go away but felt a foot on her back and a giant hand on her left door wing "No! Please!"

A sickening screech of metal tearing metal and a pained yell echoed through the empty room. She trembled on the floor as Megatron got off her and said as he walked out to glanced back "You never learn."

She laied down and waited for the pain to pass before moving to get the polish rag she dropped while helping the now dead mech and got to cleaning the energon off her frame and the ground and the offline mech, they could always fix it and reuse it. She got to her feet shakily and tried to flex her left wing, only for the pain to flair and she yelped. Sighing she began pulling the mech frame down the hall to the medbay to Hook could fix it up and maybe if he took pity on her he would fix her wing. While dragging the frame that was twice her size she bumped into a group of conehead seekers "well, well,well, if it isn't time to take out the trash. You got energon on me runt." Ramjet growled.

she panicked again and tried to hide her broken wing "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, I couldn't see where I was going."

"You minibots always say that. This time I'm not buying it, you did that on purpose!" he barked already taking note of her odd wing patterns.

She got wide optic and started backing up "No,no, I swear I didn't I had my back turned I didn't see you."

He reached out and grabbed her right wing, making her give a surprised yelp as they dangled her in the air and laughed "You're not a sparkling anymore femme, and Soundwave isn't here to save your sorry aft."

He shook her back and forth laughing at her trembling form, then he started poking and moving the damaged wing causing pained whimpers and small almost too quiet plea to stop. Amidst their fun Ravage rounded the corner and watched for a while, debating on helping the small sparkling that she once was, or just walk away. After confirmation from her master she growled and pounced on Ramjets head causing him to drop Nera who she caught just in time, she let Nera go and growled at the group before a voice behind them made them turn around "Seekers: Desist behavior. Nera: only doing job."

They gave glares and looked between the minibot who was clutching her left wing, shaking, the snarling cat and a dangerous Soundwave, before walking away with parting words "That thing doesn't have a name Soundwave, it was stupid for you to name it in the first place."

After they left around the corner Nera tried to stopped shaking and kept her head down as Soundwave approached and Ravage rubbed against her slightly. With only a voice used rarely Soundeave asked "Do you need any help, Nera? This will more then likely give you night terrors."

Kneeling down to one knee to look at her. She paused at his caring tone, she looked back from dead weight to Soundwave then after careful thinking shook her head no and turned back to the task when his hand caught her shoulder, she braced for a punishment that never came "I will tell Hook to fix your wing if you can manage to stay out of trouble."

She relaxed in his hold and gave another quick nod of conformation before Soundwave and Ravage walked down the hall like nothing happened. She thanked Primus that at least someone like Soundwave didn't want to harm her all the time. She had seen him out in battle once and he was down right cold. She grabbed her holding spots on the mech again and went back down trying to get it back to the medbay fast but extra cautious about not running into others. Once she got into the medbay Hook put the body on a medbay slab and then popped her wing back and put a temporary patch over it's hinges claiming to fix it later. She went to stand out side another door where this time they were experimenting on a little human girl. Her wings drooped as she could hear the girl crying out for her creators, she felt bad for her because she knew the feeling and just hoped that she wouldn't have to suffer for to long. This time when Starscream came out he didn't turn to stair her down and tell her to clean up the mess but seemed lost in his own thoughts She waited outside the doors until two other bots came and took away the lifeless looking form, surprised she wasn't ordered to do it. She waited longer in fear that someone would pop out and punish her if she left to a storage closet that they made look like it was a room, she had enough punishment for one cycle.

Soundwave came out and looked down at Nera, from even behind the angry red visor she could see his optics soften "All you'll worry about is just the purge. I know not pleasant but if I just send you away they might punish you anyway."

She nodded and took the rag and walked into the room. Soundwave let out a small sigh to himself, he may follow Megatron and may have let Frenzy and Rumble and Ravage and Lazerbeak because they could be useful but destroying the youth centers was not what Soundwave wanted to see from war, he also knew the seekers felt the same way and was the only reason why Nera was here in the first place, and the fact that they might have saved the future of their race made him a little easy on her then the others. Her face was scrunched at the smell of the dark energon mixed with regular energon purged all over the floor, she got right to work as not to make Starscream mad when he came back to look at the room. She cleaned and reported back to Megatron, who just starred at her until she felt like shuffling on her peds nervously, optics firmly locked onto the ground in front of his feet. What seemed like forever in fear he finally growled out a "Get out and into your quarters." which she quickly did without a second though.

She was woken up by base alarms and the sound of rushing water. She inched down the hall trying not to get caught because she really was not meant to be out in the open if alarms went off, she was told when young that the Autobots would offline her if they found her, but despite the rules she had seen some battles and she counted the Decepticons lucky because there were many times when their cause would have died because they had a lack of soldiers. While stalking quietly around her wings could feel a cold breeze and something sounded wet up ahead. She paused when the sound was right ahead of her, water, rushing at her. Before she could reach the nearest door she was swiped up and slammed by the force of the water into a closed door opening the patch that Hook put on her hinges. It slowly started coming down when the ships automated vacuum kicked in pushing out all the water. She got to her peds and quietly moaned in pain as she looked back at her left wing that ached, she pulled her attention back to what had just happen. Was it a battle? Did somebot get into a fight? whatever it was she wanted to know. She decided that if it was a battle then the halls would be open so she started running, detecting where everyone was was hard because she could only feel from one end and it proved to be her down fall because she ran into Ramjet, who was holding a vacuum and a bucket filled with a rag. He smirked at her fearful look and shoved it at her face "Clean it up, top to bottom. Lord Megatrons orders."

she took the tools and gave a sad but solid nod as he moved on laughing. She was almost done when Starscream strutted through the halls with a smug grin in place, it made Nera nervous because he usually only had that type of grin on when he over ran Megatron, for the time being anyway, or when he proved someone wrong. He caught her looking and his smug look turned into a sneer "What are you looking at? Are you slacking off?"

she shook her head furiously and looked away to continue vacuuming the water. Starscream just 'humped' and walked away, his steps bouncing again, continuing on his previous path. Once she finally cleaned the base out from water it was well into the night and most bots where sleeping, after she put all the supplies away it was her turn to recharge. She entered her little room and flopped face down on the pile of blankets she made up from the few covers they gave her, today's exhaustion finally catching up with her, not even bothering to fuel up. Maybe if she woke up before everyone she would be able to fuel up without being caught. A few weeks past and after they hauled off the one body they stopped experimenting altogether, it made her nervous. She went back to being the bases punching bag, the base was on edge because Megatron hadn't planed anything and the Autobots weren't attacking. The tension rising and she was their number one target. This time she messed up around Megatron. She was just sitting in the corner not making eye contact like she was meant to but sometimes she let her optics wonder and then go back to the floor before she was caught, her wings fluttering on her back every once in a while. But this time Megatron was watching from his throne. He would see her look around at everyone and then look away even before they could turn their heads. She kept doing this longer and longer, it made him angrier each time, until she tried to look around one of them and to the screens. He growled, her wings perked up at the sound and his movement but she looked to late. He reached and grabbed her by the wings and yanked her off the ground to face her optic level and the room seemed to stop to watch the entertainment "You think you're sneaky?! Why do you disobey? Your optics were not to leave the ground! So why are you snooping around?"

She gritted her denta to keep from screaming out in pain "I-I'm sorry. I was just looking around. I didn't mean to be noisy, honest!"

He started carrying her out by her wings "You will be sorry. I will show you what happens to bots who see what they are not meant to." he growled as they made the journey back to her quarters. 

\---

Little did any of the Decepticons know that there were three Autobots in the vents above them on a recon mission. Another yellow bot accompanied with a black and white one along with a blue and white bot were crawling around in the vents. 

"how much longer 'raj?" the black and white one asked in a whispered tone   
"Not far, we should be passing by the storage and then we can end up at the monitors front doors." Mirage answered in an equally hushed tone.

That's when they heard it, a pain filled yell followed by "I'm sorry! Please! It hurts!"

They looked between the three of them and then after a three way agreement they followed it all the way surprisingly to the storage closets. The crunching of metal twisting and tearing make them cringe as yells of pain and sobbed pleas to stop followed. They carefully looked through the vents to see a black and yellow femme being beat by Megatron, his hand pink with energon from the broken wings and broken optics "Maybe this time you will learn your lesson you scrapheap. " Megatron said leaving the room.

Nera leaned up against the side of the wall shaking in pain, quiet sobs could be heard coming from the room after the distinct sound of the door locking from the outside.

"She must be new. I've never seen her around before." Bumblebee said looking down.

"Raj, see if ya can't unlock it from the other side then see if ya can get some info from the terminals, then meet us outside."

A quick nod, then Mirage back tracked to a previous vent opening and disappeared using this cloaking devise. Jazz looked back at the other, "Ready 'bee? I'll guard the door and you see if shes alright." a nod from Bumblebee and they quietly unscrewed the vents and hopped down.

She could hardly see, but her hearing was still sensitive, she could hear the soft thumps and stiffened. A hand on her shoulder made her curl inward and brace herself at the same time until a soft friendly sounding voice echoed in the room, "Hey, don't be afraid. Are you alright? What's your designation?"

She looked up through static laced vision to see a yellow helm with soft blue optics and a smile. She opened her mouth and said, "my-my designation is Nera."

Her gaze looked around and settled on his red Autobot insignia and gasped, trying to push away from Bumblebee but arched in pain as her wings scrapped he wall, "Hey easy-"

"Plea-please don't hurt me."

Bumblebee frowned, "I'm not going to hurt you My designation is Bumblebee. Can you stand?"

"Why do you want me to stand?"

"No one should ever have to be treated like that by Megatron, not even his own men. I've never seen you around here before."

she paused, being one of Megatrons soldiers? She couldn't fight off a glitch mouse let alone a full grown mech! Something started screaming inside her telling her that she should tell him the truth and see if they would save her. With each passing moment Bumblebee's face put on a frown until Nera's shaking servo weakly grabbed at the one on her shoulder "Can you help me? I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to hurt anymore."

Jazz looked between the two and Bumblebee called out "Jazz? Did Mirage get the door?"

"Yeah, all ready an' waitin' on her. I'll go to the far side and make a distraction while you wait here, I'll come back ta pick ya's up."

And Jazz was back into the vents. They sat quietly, Bumblebee looked over Nera's frame. Her helm was bent in places, derma plates split opened and energon slipped from her ole factory and cracked optics. Her wings twisted and bent in ways he didn't think they were meant, and so many dents littered her frame and scratches he could only tell that the black was part of her paintjob after he got close to her. Her systems were so quiet, if he didn't know better he would have thought she was offline for good. He noticed her eyes brighten slightly and glanced at him "It only looks bad."

He looked away and scratched his helm and reset his vocalizer "How long have you...been here?"

"Was found by Ravage in ruble, gave to Starscream, then as I got older Soundwave taught me what I'm supposed to do. I was also told that if Autobots found me they would kill me right away."

Bumblebee flinched, he wouldn't kill anyone right away, especially a young femme, and looking at it he didn't thing he would have done it even if she was his arch enemy. She shrugged at the end and turned her head to him "What about you? How long have you been in the Autobots?"

Bumblebee looked back at her "Well, found by Irondhide and Optimus after the youth centers where destroyed. So pretty much my whole life cycle."

She leaned her head against the wall and shut her optics again.

"Come on, don't go into stasis on me, Jazz should be coming back any moment and Mirage is waiting for us." he said softly shaking her shoulder, she rolled her head back and her eyes widened at her wings gave a weak twitch and whispered "Bumblebee, you need to get into the vents. Right now. Someone is coming."

Just before the door swooshed open he leaped and made it into the vents and watched quietly as Soundwave entered. Soundwave watched as Nera curled as much as she could without hurting herself more, then he quietly ejected Ravage. She leaned up against Nera and purred, she was rewarded with Nera's shaky servo on top of her head.

"I'm sorry. You should have known better, Nera." he said as he got down on both knees and looked her over. Nera let him wincing at some touches but still petting Ravage, he took mental notes as he looked her over and his spark flared in his chest, she was still practically a youngling at the age on 19 verons and the protective instinct that Starscream and his trine grew out of was still going on for him. Bumblebee watched with his jaw in his servos to see how gentle Soundwave was and how comfortable Nera looked around him, until his inner comm went off "'Bee! I've got a mad little dude on my tail pipe! We need to grab and go!"

"Soundwave is in her room, Jazz! Did you set the charges?"

"Yup, we gotta chance that grab 'n' go 'Bee or we'll be nothing for pick up."

Soundwave stood up and knowingly looked up at the vents then back at Nera "Be careful, Nera, because I hope your Autobots know what they're doing." and left, Ravage giving one more purr before following him.

His words snapped Nera out of a light stasis that she was lulled in by his rubbing mensuration to stair at the now closed door in shock until Bumblebee jumped down with Jazz "Can you stand?"

"To weak. Just leave me so you won't get caught."

Jazz and bumblebee looked between each other before Bumblebee bent down and being mindful of her wings, picked her up bridle style and looked down with a smile "What kind of friend would I be if I left you?"

She gasped at him as Jazz creaked the door open to find it empty. A loud bang was herd then the base started to shake and a familiar sound reached Nera's audios, she curled into him as they waited little before opening the door and bolting down the hallway back to where Mirage, Jazz, and Bumblebee entered from. Once they slipped out in the confusion she started to enter recharge, her optics dimming "Come on, don't recharge yet, we're almost to base. After we do then you can rest."

She made a noise of protest when they reached Mirages startled form and without another sound she fell offline.

 

\---

 

A soft sound was what she herd when she first online her systems, the next was that she was warm. She was never warm it was always cold down under the Earth's sea, She opened her optics to see an orange ceiling with bright lights, That wasn't her ceiling, she could see, she shot up and regretted it shutting her optics, her body ached and her wings felt numb, "How are you feeling? Any discomfort besides the aching?" a voice asked to her left.

she whipped her head to see a white bot with red crosses and a gray cheveron looking at her expectantly, she shrunk in on herself and inched away until a familiar voice came from her right "Hey it's okay. Ratchets mostly harmless" Bumblebee joked.

"Where am I? What happen?"

"After we meet up with Mirage you went into stasis lock, Once Skyfire got use to base we took you to the medbay to get you fixed up" he said with a smile.

She stared at him dumbly, she couldn't believe what he said: she was free, no more punishments, no more chores, no more Decepticons! She was so happy that she gave Bumblebee a huge hug and started crying, then she turned to Ratchet and gave him a hug all the while babbling thank you. A little while after Ratchet asked about her wings before a tall red and blue bot with a facemask came in with two other bots, Jazz and a black and white paraxian with a red cheveron. She had seen him in battle before but never paid him any attention The tallest one looked at Ratchet "Is she alright, Ratchet?"

"Yes, Prime, she will recover fine, besides previous scars."

Prime turned to Bumblebee "Jazz, will be debriefing you, Bumblebee."

Jazz gave a wave to them as Bumblebee looked at Nera one more time before saluting him and following Jazz out of the room. Prime turned to Nera and spoke softly "I am Optimus Prime, what is your designation?"

she looked at him apprehensively "Nera."

"Nera, how old are you?"

"19 verons." she said keeping her gaze away, she didn't think they would hurt her but she was going to keep it safe, she barely caught the paraxians wing twitch, he was shocked but his face remained emotionless.

"How did the Decepticons find you?"

"Ravage found me as a sparkling after the youth centers were destroyed."

"What did they want from you if Megatron was hurting you." his voice light.

Even with her newly installed visor they could see her optics void of emotion "I was a slave that broke a rule. The base was busy and I was in the main room next to his throne and when I thought no one was watching I would look at the screens, it looked like places and guns and plans. Megatron caught me."

"Nera, we offer you a safe place here at the Autobot base if you wish to stay, We have an open chamber with another bot" an unspoken question.

Revenge? To teach all of the cons that weak little Nera was kicking their afts? Slag. Yeah. She nodded "Yes, I will join."

He nodded "Prowl here will show you to your quarters and then after, if you can, tell him what you saw and we can take precautions for it. Welcome to the Autobots, Nera."

**Author's Note:**

> Well? How did it go for my first story? Reviews are always welcome ^.^'


End file.
